Erwin

Not exactly the place you expect to stay for four nights. But Erwin, Tennessee is where a lot of people just get stuck. Not that we meant to, it just sort of... happened. We got a ride from Sam's Gap to Uncle Johnny's Hostel in Erwin. The two are about 25 trail miles apart. So the next day we slack packed (carried a day pack much lighter than our normal packs) from Sam's back to Johnny's. And then we stayed. Two more days. It was just hard to leave in the rain. We ate Mexican food three times. We played with the dog that a hiker, Just, found in the woods and adopted. We bought a book for 25 cents from the library. We watched the Nolichucky River rise into a raging brown flood.

And finally the rain stopped and we left. On the way out we stood on the bridge over that flooded river and watched as entire tree trunks and picnic tables floated by. The trails were very wet, and more than once I had to stop and make sure we hadn't turned onto a small stream.

And then we had one of my favorite days on the trail. The hiking was easy enough, I felt stronger than I have in the past, and the surroundings were beautiful. And even though sometimes this journey seems ridiculously difficult, and our feet hurt and the up hills seem so impossibly steep, I always find that I am happy at the end of the day. Proud of myself, proud of Max. Even though we aren't the fastest hikers or doing crazy miles, I know that with patience eventually we will get there. I have seen too many hikers pushing themselves to do more miles than they can physically do, just to end up hurt and going home. The main goal is to avoid that, and to enjoy ourselves. No need to rush.

Sara

P.S. We apologize for not posting as religiously as we have been before. At the end of the day we're tired, or lazy, but we'll try to pick it up again.